Latest developments on the initial scheme tailored to finances a little - and allowing more of the river to remain in view perhaps!

From the YEP today:

Published on Monday 6 February 2012 08:47

Plans to try to kick-start the stalled Leeds flood defence scheme are this week expected to win the backing of senior councillors.

There was dismay in the city last year when a comprehensive £188m scheme to provide flood defences to a 1 in 200 year standard between Newlay Bridge and Woodlesford failed to attract sufficient government support.

The city was within centimetres of a major flood in 2000 and has also come close to flooding in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008.

Now the council and the Environment Agency are working on proposals for a revised scheme that could be carried out in stages.

The estimated cost of phase one is £75.8m and it would provide protection against a 1 in 75 year flood in the city centre between the railway station and Knostrop Weir. It is hoped to have the defences in place within the next four years.

The longer term aim would be to expand and improve the defences to a 1 in 200 year standard.

Phase one works include replacing Crown Point and Knostrop weir with movable ones, which could be altered to lower water levels in advance of expected higher flow; merging the River Aire and Calder Navigation at Knostrop cut - an 800m section where the canal and river currently run in parallel and erecting defences including walls, terracing and embankments.

A report to be discussed by the council’s Executive Board on Friday says movable weirs would allow defence walls and barriers to be significantly reduced in height.

It adds: “Where possible these defences will be incorporated into existing structures to minimise the impact on residents and on the waterfront.”

The council has allocated £10m towards flood defences, a similar sum could be available from the government and the council is also hoping to win backing from the private sector and the European Regional Development Fund.

The report recommends that the board gives the go-ahead for £500,000 to be spent on a feasibility study for the stage one works.

Well, after tonights deluge there must have been some localised flooding in Leeds.

Driving down the M621 from Gildersome there were impressive flashes of lightening across the east of the city and I left the motorway on the link road to the John Smeaton Viaduct the heavens well and truly opened.

Wipers at full speed and headlights on, conditions soon became treacherous, with the drainage on this relatively new structure unable to cope and several inches of standing water building up against the inner kerb very rapidly. There was also a lot of standing water on the 'new' A63 East Leeds Link Road as well (this seems to be a design flaw of newly constructed roads, they appear to have very poor drainage).

Round East End Park and onto York Road and the fun really began. Standing water across both carriageways, probably 4 or 5 inches deep in the dip where the bus lane crosses into the central reservation by the hand car wash. Then up to the Shaftesbury Junction, where a small river was flowing down Harehills Lane, joining the water already on York Road, covering most of the road. As traffic was only moving at a crawl now I headed down Gipton Gulch, finding 6 inches of standing water outside the former police station. Drainage here is poor at the best of times, with standing water remaining on the inbound carriageway of York Road long after much more modest showers.

Another accumulation to navigate at the junction of Wykebeck Valley Road and Oakwood Lane (weren't measures put in place at great cost to stop this happening?) and the school fields looked more like a lake than a football pitch.

Then on to the double whammy - several inches of water completely across the road at the roundabout where WVR meets Foundry lane and up to South Parkway Approach, necessitating me taking a route along the crown of the road and taking the corner with a very wide berth (another recent road layout that seems inable to cope) and then onto the bridge over Wyke Beck. This was the worrying point as the beck had almost filled the little valley it normally runs in and can't have been much more than a foot of so from topping the natural restraints and the road bridge across it. The nearby roundabout at the bottom of South Parkway was also almost encircled by the dark forbidding waters. This was certain to test the improved flood defences further down the valley in the Dunhills and beyond. I do hope they have proved up to the job.

Thence onward home with the worst of the deluge passing and only the odd troublesome spot (junction of South Parkway and Kentmere Avenue being notable as several downhill roads meet here in an obvious point for runoff to gather. Sherburn Road under the A64 bridge was also under a couple of inches of water.

Finally home, I exited the car from the passenger side after noting the raging torrent where the gutter normally is....

Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act – George Orwell